


Fast Forward, Start Again

by SeptemberMorningBell



Series: Out of Place, Out of Time [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxious Katsuki Yuuri, Depressed Victor Nikiforov, Developing Relationship, Fluff, Humor, It's okay they help each other, M/M, Time Travel, lots of fluff because I have no self control
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 14:41:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16477469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeptemberMorningBell/pseuds/SeptemberMorningBell
Summary: The other side of the story from Stop, Rewind, Restart! Yuuri and Viktor from before Sochi find themselves five years in the future, multiple time world champions on the cusp of retirement--and married. Yurio, fifteen, confused, and very angry, wakes up twenty years old, still confused, and very,veryangry.





	Fast Forward, Start Again

**Author's Note:**

> [Stop, Rewind, Restart](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11582031/chapters/26027577), is the reverse half of this story, with happily married Yuuri and Victor thrown five years into the past. Not required reading, but contains lots of comforting fluff and a few good puns.

Three weeks before the start of the 2015 skating season, Victor Nikiforov fell asleep in an empty apartment with a book open on his lap and the fault line in his mind about to give, and woke up to an angel.

It took him some time to realize that anything was different, really; he slept most nights curled around Makkachin and indeed, there she was at the end of the bed, snoring and twitching her feet in pursuit of some dream-squirrel, and this was certainly his pillow and his bed and his apartment, and that was the thin pale light of a sun that had only just recently remembered how to set breaking through the curtains, and here was the weight of someone’s arm draped around his waist, warm breath brushing the back of his neck and warmer legs tangled with his own…

Victor’s eyes widened. He rarely took lovers, particularly not when training was this intense, and he _never_ brought them back to his apartment. Stirring tiredly, he threw his mind back to the previous night, trying to recall if Chris had showed up unexpectedly, or if, more and more common these days, he’d downed enough vodka to shake off the terrible inertia of his life and trade it for a shot glass of self-sabotaging recklessness. Only, as far as he could remember, all he’d done was settle down with his worn copy of _Jane Eyre_ and fall asleep somewhere along the way. 

So then how…?

Victor sat up abruptly. The person in his bed mumbled something in a sleep-hoarse voice he didn’t recognize and a language he didn’t know, and pulled the duvet pointedly over their head. Which was deeply unhelpful, because now all he had to go on was a human-sized lump under the covers and a faint leafy, citrusy smell that made him think, bizarrely, of umbrellas.

Well, not all, exactly. Because, now that he was awake and sitting up and clear headed enough to process anything beyond “what the fuck”, it was becoming clear that this _wasn’t_ his bedroom. Or, rather, it was, just…not as he remembered it.

The broad outline was the same, the wall of bright paned windows and the comfy chair in its warmth, the arching unshaded lamps and the overflowing bookshelf and the cabinet of medals he never thought about anymore—all of them in their place, and still somehow wrong, because new curtains hung over the windows and there were crumpled shirts and sweatpants tossed on the chair that he wouldn’t be caught dead in and the books in their shelves were half of volumes he’d never seen and topped with an array of framed pictures he’d surely never felt the need to display and the medal cabinet was more of an entire medal wall and contained more gold and silver than any one man could win in a lifetime.

“Um,” he said. And because this didn’t seem entirely sufficient for the situation he now found himself in, added, “что, нахрен?”

“何でやねん?” said the lump under the covers.

“What? Oh, shit, ah, um—do you…English? Yes?” said Viktor, with a sudden desperate hope that the mysterious apparition in his bed was at least slightly fluent in English. It was either that or ancient Greek, and the likelihood of any given person being conversationally fluent in a dead and debatably pronounced language was a little slim, to say the least.

“What? Oh my god, of course I speak English, Phichit; how drunk are you?” the figure—male, soft-voiced and lilting but very definitely male—laughed. (And wasn’t that a relief, really, because Viktor would really, _really_ hate to explain how extremely mistaken any woman in his bed would have to be.) And he spoke English. And apparently thought he was someone named Phichit, which—well, the only Phichit he knew of was the sharp-edged burst of colour and skate blades and incredibly well manicured eyebrows making waves in Juniors, and Russia really wasn’t that close to Thailand—although now that he thought about it the burble of confused exclamations coming from the blanket had a definite hint of the sun drenched south and ocean and wait, no, that couldn’t be it, and anyway—

“Okay, Phi, I’m getting up, just hold on,” the man said, cutting off Viktor’s panicked thoughts as he tossed the blankets back and peered around blearily with thick lashed eyes and what was clearly a mind still drenched in the watercolor filter of sleep. And that _definitely_ put a sharp stop to any coherent line of thinking because holy _fuck_ was the apparition in his bed an angel pulled from the best and most beloved dreams of poets, and Viktor, well, Viktor was only human. “Please don’t throw up on me.”

“Um,” Viktor said.

The angel turned to squint at him, eyes the colour of well steeped tea in the early light and taking on an increasingly puzzled expression as the blurriness of sleep lifted and the current situation registered with him.

“Oh,” he said. “I’m dreaming. That’s fine.” He nodded to himself, smiling a smile that no earthly being had ever dreamed of achieving, and slid the pair of glasses Viktor hadn’t noticed sitting on the bedside table next to him on his adorable nose.

And he was wearing Viktor’s old rink t-shirt. _Viktor’s shirt_.

There was a very real possibility that he was either about to die or already blissfully, miraculously dead.

“Um,” he said again, and mentally cursed, because he’d read every great romantic novel ever written, damn it, and none of them had prepared him for the eventuality of having to explain to the most beautiful man in the world that apparently they’d woken up together and he had absolutely no idea how it had happened.

“Though my subconcious doesn’t usually put you in my ratty old poodle pyjama bottoms,” the man went on, squinting at Viktor’s legs. “That’s weird. Kinda hot, though.”

Apparently this was enough to remind Viktor how to speak, because he was able to rasp out a sharp, “What are you talking about? These are mine. I’ve had them for years. They’re _comfortable_.” He tugged a loose thread out with a sharp snap of his wrist. “Anyway, I couldn’t get new ones if I wanted to because they stopped making them. Apparently poodles aren’t chic.”

“What? Do they even _know_ about Makkachin?” his visitor said. “She’s like…she’s like the Versace of dogs.”

The angel understood the wonder that was Makkachin. Of _course_ he did. Viktor was doomed. “That’s what I told them! But apparently cats are in now. Chris laughed at me when I told him.”

“Chris is a cat person,” the man said, shaking his head sadly. “It’s his worst quality.”

Viktor stared at him for a moment as this processed. “You know Chris?”

The apparition stared back with beautifully puzzled eyes. “Of course I know Chris? We’ve been competing together since Juniors?” His expression suddenly clouded, warmth dissipating like a door slamming shut on a cold, rainy night. “You don’t know who I am, do you?”

“I…” Viktor began, frantically searching his memory, because of course he would remember any skater this soft and beautiful, of course he would—and there was Katsuki Yuuri, yes, but he was all impossible sharp edges and flow, flashing like fire and music and untouchable grace, and this gorgeous creature was…soft, endlessly deep still water and sunrise. And just slightly too mature in the line of his jaw and the set of his eyes to be Katsuki anyway; he must be closer to Viktor’s age, though certainly not much older.

Which wasn’t in the least a problem. Viktor wasn’t picky about his miracles.

“I’m…I’m not dreaming, am I?” the stranger said, and then, slowly, but inevitably, catching speed as the situation at last seemed to register, his expression collapsed into nothing but wide eyed panic and pure animal terror.

Viktor didn’t know anyone could be that frightened.

(Viktor didn’t know anyone could be that frightened of _him_.)

“Um,” he said, helpless, lost, and a little offended. “Nyet. I mean, no. You’re not. Dreaming, I mean. At least, I don’t think you are; I’m not in your head, ha. Because I’d have to be dreaming too, and that would be kind of odd, da?”

The man said nothing, trembling violently, staring blankly at nothing.

“It’s…fine?” Viktor ventured. 

No response.

He sighed, picking another thread out of his—perfectly nice and respectable, thank you—pyjama pants.

“I mean, it’s obviously not,” he went on, with what was probably inappropriate cheeriness. “I just woke up in my apartment that’s not my apartment and so did you, I mean, clearly there’s something incredibly weird going on, but, well, at least it’s interesting! Nothing interesting ever happens to me.”

Slowly, like the strings of a puppet dragged up from the dust of a long abandoned toybox, the man looked up, face dead white, eyes nearly gold with reflected tears. “You’re Viktor Nikiforov. You’ve won four World Championships.”

“Yes,” Viktor said, exhaling very slowly in a way that might have been a sigh, if Viktor Nikiforov did things like sigh when discussing his skating career, and then lifting his chin and flashing the man his most dazzling magazine smile. “I certainly have.” 

The figure in his bed drew his knees up to his chest, pulling in shaky breaths like he wasn’t sure he deserved the relief of air and squinting his eyes like he’d been blinded by the gorgeous glare thrown up by all the emptiness under Viktor’s smile, and said, very quietly, “I never even made it to the Finals.” He looked up, a sudden stream of hysterical laughter bubbling from his lips. “And now I’m in your bedroom, in your clothes, and I can’t even remember how I got here. I’m living in my own dream world, and you _still_ have no idea who I am.”

Viktor reached out a hand to Makkachin, searching for the familiar warmth of her fur and the comfort of her unquestioning affection. “You could just tell me.”

“It wouldn’t matter anyway,” the man said. “It wouldn’t mean anything to you.”

“Then I’ll just call Chris and ask him,” Viktor snapped, with rather more pettiness than he generally liked to admit to. Under his fingers, Makkachin stirred, much more slowly and carefully than he expected, more bone and grey than he’d ever imagined his precious baby to be, and he instantly forgot all about the gorgeous, irritating man sitting with his bruised feet half tucked in the blankets behind him and scrambled across the bed to his dog. “Makka! Makka, _printsessa moya_ , what’s wrong, are you alright? Are you sick? It’s okay, papa’s here.”

Makkachin turned her greying muzzle to look up at him with clouded eyes, seeming slightly annoyed by all the fuss, wagged her tail once or twice, and went back to sleep.

“Makka?” Viktor tried to keep his expression steady, mouth trembling despite his best efforts, as he ran his hands over her thinning fur, scratching at her favourite spots.

“Is…is she alright?” His visitor said, very quietly. “Should I…should I call a vet?”

There was a rustle as he cast around for a phone.

“She’s…she’s _old_.” Viktor said, catching a sob just before it slipped out. “I don’t understand. She was just…she was fine yesterday! She wasn’t greying at all, not even a little—she was bouncing around like a puppy when I put her to bed! She was a puppy. She _is_ a puppy. I don’t—I don’t understand.” 

“I…I think I might be able to explain,” the other man said, in a shaky voice.

“How do you explain—”

“Look.”

A cell phone was thrust in his face, a little battered around the edges although of a model he’d never seen, thin and sleek and half hidden in a dark blue case that appeared to be just a different coloured version of his own, and on the screen a display proclaiming it as 6:45 am, September 1st, 2020, and behind that, beaming from the screen, himself, older and happier than he’d ever imagined, cheek pressed against the beaming face of the strange man he’d woken up to, arms curled around each other’s waists, matching rings flashing gold from their fingers.

Viktor looked down. From his right hand, a band of gold winked up at him. 

He looked across the bed, to where his visitor sat, fingers curling around the edges of the phone case, and there, circling his ring finger as though it belonged there, had always belonged there, a bright circle of matching gold. 

Viktor drew in a slow breath.

“It’s…we’ve…it’s 2020,” the stranger—not stranger? His fiance? _Husband?_ —said.

“We’re _married_ ,” Viktor said, staring at his hand.

The beautiful man in his bed stared at him for a full minute before raising a excusing finger, turning away, burying his face in the pillow, and screaming.

Viktor huffed a little. He wasn’t _that_ ugly. Frankly, he wasn’t even a little bit ugly. Just because he wasn’t a vision of aesthetic perfection plucked from the painting of a renaissance master didn’t mean he couldn’t be attractive. And it wasn’t as though losing five years was the end of the world. It wasn’t as though losing five years mattered at all, really.

Finally, the man turned back to him, his expression as smooth and eerily calm as a frozen winter lake before the first ice-rending thaw. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just that I’ve had a gigantic, embarrassing crush on you since I was twelve.” 

“Wow,” Viktor said, because that was just too adorable for eloquence. “Amazing. I’ve had a crush on _you_ since about five minutes ago!”

His future husband stared blankly at him for another long moment, before slowly lifting the duvet and disappearing entirely under it.

“I can’t deal with this right now,” he said, voice tiny and muffled and touched with the lilting hints of an accent Viktor couldn’t quite identify. “I’m going back to sleep. Goodnight.”

“It’s morning,” Viktor said, poking the duvet lump experimentally.

“Good morning, then,” his _future husband_ said, curling up tightly under the blankets like a distressed beetle. “I’m going to sleep. Please smother me with a pillow if it seems like I might wake up.”

Viktor prodded him again. “Aren’t you even going to tell me your name?”

Silence, for a long, aching moment. And then: “Yuuri,” came the soft, hesitant reply from under the duvet. “Katsuki Yuuri.”

“Katsuki Yuuri,” Viktor said, surprised, and then with the first edges of a smile he’d almost forgotten curving up the corners of his mouth at the roll of the familiar syllables on his tongue. “Katsuki Yuuri. Yuuuri Katsuki. Japan’s Ace, yes? You were absolutely robbed at the Trophee de France last year. I thought you skated like…” he trailed off, staring at the suddenly tense shape under the blankets. “I didn’t recognize you, not without…you usually don’t…” he began, lamely.

“No,” Yuuri said, voice low. “You didn’t.” There was a long pause. Then, “It’s okay. I wouldn’t…I don’t recognize me either.”

“No,” Viktor said, looking around the room, at a cabinet full of medals and scattered t-shirts, one size too small and stretched out at the shoulders, at the wedding photos on the wall and scrawled, heart-dotted notes stuck on the bookshelf as a perfectly mundane reminder that they needed milk, at socks and skate guards and dog toys and paper and all the debris of two lives stitched together so tightly they could never come apart. “It’s been an interesting five years, I think.” 

“Yes,” Yuuri said. “Too bad we missed it.”

“Da,” Viktor said, staring at a photo of him and Yuuri in Olympic uniform, in one another’s arms and crying with joy as Yuuri held up a gold medal and Viktor a silver. “I think you might be right.”

**Author's Note:**

> You can shame me here on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/punsforthepungod) for my unreliable updates and appalling sense of humour.


End file.
